POLYURETHANE | INNOVATION


Major polyurethane materials groups are responding to circularity pressure with breakthroughs in chemical recycling development. David Eldridge reports


PU producers make advances in recycling


Polyurethane (PU) has long been considered one of the plastics industry’s toughest circularity challeng- es. As a thermoset, it cannot simply be melted down and reprocessed like a thermoplastic, and the sheer diversity of PU applications means no single recycling technology fits all waste streams. Major PU raw material producers have been active in devel- oping their own mechanical and chemical recycling processes which have differences in the way the PU waste is transformed for reuse in new applications. Mattress foam and automotive PU waste have


emerged as the two priority waste streams, reflecting both their volume and their relative ease of sorting. Most of the technology developed by materials producers is at pilot or early-commercial scale. BASF has pursued a multi-pronged “make, use,


recycle” strategy across its PU business, combining mechanical recycling, solvent-based recycling, depolymerisation and thermochemical routes such as pyrolysis and gasification. In September 2025, BASF, Porsche and technol-


ogy partner Bioenergy and Sustainable Technolo- gies (BEST) completed a pilot project demonstrat- ing, for the first time, that a mixed waste stream of automotive shredder residue and biomass could be


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com


converted via gasification into synthesis gas, which then replaced fossil raw materials in BASF’s Ver- bund production network. The resulting recycled feedstock was used to manufacture PU for a new steering wheel component in which the recycled content is allocated via a mass balance approach. Robert Kallenberg, Head of Sustainability at


Porsche, said: “We are testing new recycling technologies with our direct partners in order to increase recyclate quotas, gain access to previously unusable recyclate sources and evaluate new processes for waste streams that are currently being thermally utilized.” Martin Jung, President of BASF’s Performance


Materials division, said the company prioritises mechanical recycling but regards “complementary technologies such as chemical recycling, which includes pyrolysis, depolymerization and gasifica- tion” as necessary to keep more plastic waste out of landfill and incineration. At K 2025 in Düsseldorf, BASF highlighted a long-standing partnership with furniture maker Vitra on what it described as the world’s first economically recyclable flexible PU foam for furniture. The group promoted its collaboration


July/August 2026 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 25


Main image: Polyurethane foam waste is a feedstock stream for new recycling processes


IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32